


Snapshots

by zephsomething



Series: Surviving the War [21]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 01:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15718686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephsomething/pseuds/zephsomething
Summary: Dennis Creevey put his brother's photos into a book.





	Snapshots

The Headline read ‘A PERSONAL LOOK INSIDE HOGWARTS?’ and underneath was a photo of a boy holding a book. He gave the impression of being very small, or perhaps that was just because the book he was holding was very large. The cover of the book was mostly taken up by a photo of what was undeniably the mousy boy who was holding it standing beside another mousy haired boy who was slightly taller, they had the same small nose and the same wide grin. On the book cover the taller boy had one arm wrapped around the smaller and the other arm outstretched like he was holding the camera. The boy holding the book was shifting nervously but the cover photo on the book stayed so so still, unnaturally so. Under that was a page number for the article.

The article went on to talk about a boy named Colin Creevey, who’d loved taking photos, attending hogwarts, and doing what he thought was right. Weaved among reminisces about Colin Creevey was little offhanded comments about Dennis Creevey, who’d captioned and published the book of photos, called ‘Through my Brother’s Eyes’ in memory of an older brother who died defending hogwarts.

The article came out on the same day the book was published exactly three years after the battle of Hogwarts. Copies of the book also arrived to several people on that same day. Who it was sent to was chosen by Dennis Creevey for reasons he never shared with anyone. One copy went to Harry and Ginny. Another to Ron and Hermione. Luna Lovegood way out in a jungle somewhere received a copy. One was sent Neville Longbottom in the Hogwarts greenhouses. George Weasley opened his window in the morning and the owl who delivered his Daily Prophet was nearly knocked off the table by the one who brought him a book. The Patil twins got a copy each. An owl landed on a windowsill in a little muggle town where Cho Chang was reconnecting with her mother’s family. One copy was delivered to the small flat in London that Dean Thomas shared with Seamus Finnigan.

 

—

 

Harry and Ginny paused in the middle of trying to put up a wall as the owl landed beside them with a parcel. Harry unwrapped it and his breath caught in his chest as he saw the Creevey brothers grinning out at him from the cover of the book.

“Did you know Dennis was working on a book?” Ginny asked quietly and Harry shook his head. Last he’d heard Dennis was on route to finish his last year of Hogwarts, taking his NEWTs in the next month or so. She took the book from his hands and skimmed the front page. “It’s Colin’s photos.”

“He must have sorted through them after…” Harry trailed off as Ginny opened the first page and laughed. The entire first page was taken up by an incredibly awkward looking Harry being dragged into frame by none other than Gilderoy Lockhart.

“Harry Potter was a bit of an obsession for my brother,” she read it out between giggles. “But he’s not the subject of this book, Hogwarts is.”

“Thank god for that.” Harry smirked as they both sank to the ground with the book in the grass in front of them.

“You’re the subject of more than enough books, we don’t want to inflate your ego too much.” Ginny tried to nod wisely, but it was ruined by another giggle.

Harry rolled his eyes and they started flicking through it. The photos were by no means in chronological order, or any order Harry could tell. It seemed random at first which photos were muggle ones and which weren’t until Harry realized that it was just the ones Colin had made magical that moved, Dennis hadn’t changed the photos at all. Not all of them were Colin’s best work either, several had smudges of Colin’s fingers at the edges, awkward angles, or were blurry.

He paused on a page about halfway through the book. The photo he was looking at took up over half of a page. It was a photo of the Gryffindor table in the great hall taken from above, Colin would have had to stand on a bench to take the shot. It was out of focus and angled oddly, like he’d stretched his shaking arm up in the air to snap the photo. It was the Weasley’s sitting together, Ginny leaning forward, the twins leaning nearly out of frame laughing, Percy frowning with a book open in front of him, and Ron with an easy grin on his face. In the center of all the red hair was Harry, his messy black hair easy to pick out even though he was looking down, and Hermione with her coily bushy brown hair and a frown that nearly matched Percy’s.

“Gryffindor’s eating in the great hall.” He read the caption and felt a knot in his chest loosen, the photo could have been any day in his second or third year. For anyone who didn’t pay attention it was just a group of kids with red and gold trim on their robes.

“Wonder why he didn’t add names.” Ginny rested her chin on Harry’s shoulder as she looked at the photo.

“Maybe he figured people would just know?”

“Keeping his promise that you weren’t the focus of the book?”

“There’s not just me in that photo.” Harry chuckled and gave the photo a look. “Maybe he just didn’t want to write Weasley that many times.”

“Oh that’s gotta be it, we’d take up the rest of the page.” Ginny nodded sagely. “Weasley, Weasley, Weasley, Weasley-”

“I get it, love.” Harry laughed and turned his head to press a kiss to her cheek.

“Merlin do you think he was on the bench or the table?” She laughed and tapped on the bottom of the photo.

“Colin? Merlin, he’d’ve been so small then.” Harry chuckled. “Maybe he convinced someone to lift him up.”

Ginny collapsed against him giggling at the thought. “Oh I hope it was that.”

 

—

 

Hermione and Ron settled onto the old battered couch in the apartment over Diagon Alley to look through the book Dennis had sent them. Ron started laughing at the first page and spent most of their first look through cracking jokes about each photo. Most of them Hermione laughed at.

The second time they flicked through it Hermione went slower and slower, they’d just been kids, in every photo it was all she could see. Children in a place that should have been safe. Then she turned the page and stuttered to a stop. The two pages had a dozen photos on them, they were just of kids being kids, but it was the photo in the center of one page that she stared at.

Lavender and Parvati were sitting with half a dozen other kids, makeup and nail polish scattered on the floor among crossed knees and smiling faces. The first time they’d gone through it had looked like just that, this time Hermione noticed the background. The shelves and walls she recognized as the room of requirement as it had been when they’d come back from collecting horcruxes. She saw the hard lines of Parvati’s shoulders, the way one of the little kids kept flinching, the way Lavender and Parvati were never both looking down at the same time, and the way one of the kid’s had their face set in determined lines.

She stared at the photo and something inside her stomach curled in on itself. They were just children, why had they had to fight that war? They’d been on the front lines for a year, sent to a place that should have been teaching them and instead tortured them. Even as she thought it she remembered feeling so old then, seventeen and fighting a war, covering Harry’s blind spots and trying not to see the cracks along Ron’s fault lines. She’d felt so old then, so important, and now sitting looking at a photo three years and the end of a war later all she can think is that they were just children. All of them.

Ron’s hands covered hers, pull them back from the page, and she leaned into him as he turned the page to a new photo. Before she could look at any more photos she closed her eyes and let Ron wrap his arms around her.

“We won, it’s over and we won the war.” Ron is solid, warm and real beside her, as she whispers the words over and over. In the back of her mind a voice whispers back but at what cost? and she tries to ignore it.

“It’s alright now.” Ron whispers back, his chin on her head and one hand rubbing soothing circles on her back. “It’ll be alright.”

 

—

 

She was halfway through a jungle with everything she needed tucked into her backpack when the owl landed beside her with a parcel.

“You’re a clever one, to find me out here.” Luna smiled dreamily and pulled a pack of jerky out of her pocket, offering a piece to the owl as she took the package. They hooted twice before taking the jerky and flying away. “Safe journeys to you as well.”

She sat on a nearby rock and opened the book, the boys on the front cover she knew to be the Creevey brothers who had trailed around after Harry for ages. Colin had wanted to grow up to be him she recalled with a soft smile. The book was filled with people she knew. For a moment as she turned the pages it felt like being home again with her friends around her.

In the second half of the book was a photo of Colin, taken no doubt by his brother who had a habit of stealing Colin’s camera. He was standing on tiptoes behind a boy who’s messy dark hair was recognizable from any distance. There was a grin on his face and he was stretching up, trying to be as tall as the boy who he wanted desperately to be like.

Luna traced her finger over the caption and nodded. ‘I outgrew the height my brother died at a year ago’ it said and she gave the book another soft smile.

“I outgrew my mother in the Malfoy’s dungeon.” She said conversationally, her words directed at the book. “I didn’t notice until I didn’t have to stretch to take something off a shelf at Shell Cottage.”

 

—

 

Neville found himself confused more than anything else when the owl dropped it’s parcel on his lap. Realizing that it was Dennis Creevey’s book didn’t make him any less confused. He’d seen Dennis working on the book in his spare time but he wasn’t sure why he got a free copy.

As he looks through the book, reading Dennis’ sarcastic, thoughtful, and purposefully bland captions he finds himself grinning more often than not. For every thought provoking or heartbreaking photo Dennis put in a photo that would make someone laugh or think about what fools children make of themselves.

A photo almost all the way through the book makes Neville pause though. It’s one of the ones whose year is easiest to place. Harry is standing front and center, hands waving as he speaks, the DA is stretched around him. Regardless as to whether they’re standing or sitting it’s obvious in the pictures that they’re all listening intently. In the background however, lit by the bright sparks flying from his wand, is Neville himself. He’s shooting the same spell over and over at a dummy.

He finds himself chuckling as he watches the hex fizzle out before it hits the dummy. It could have been any spell Harry taught him. He’d always needed so much more practice than everyone else to get them right but he’d practiced until he did it.

Then he read the caption and laughed so loudly professor Sprout came over from where she’d been pruning to see what he was laughing about. He tried to stifle his giggles but when he couldn’t he just tapped the caption.

“Hard at work against the Professor’s wishes?” She frowned for a moment in thought before letting out a chuckle herself. “That ridiculous woman tried very hard to ensure none of you learned a single thing.”

Neville nodded as he finally got his laughter under control. “Most of us worked harder to learn the spells because of that.”

“Well you know what they say about banning books.” Professor Sprout waved her wand in the general vicinity of her plants, letting out a stream of water easily. At Neville’s confused look she elaborated. “To ban a book is to turn one reader into three.”

 

—

 

The joke shop was closed, but George’s had left his window open for the owl who delivered the prophet. The delivery of the book was entirely unexpected. He looked at the still photo of the Creevey brothers on the front cover and decided he felt brave enough to open it to a random page while Angelina was making breakfast.

The first page he opened it to held half a dozen photos of kids in classrooms or the great hall or the room of requirement. It’s a photo in the bottom corner that catches George’s eyes, that steals the breath from his lungs.

The photo is crystal clear and moving. In it George, Lee, and Fred have their heads bent together over a radio. There are bits of parchment strewn around them and it’s clear that they’re in the room of requirement. They’re talking, animated, their hands shifting as they speak. He stares at it, at the freckles across Fred’s nose that match his perfectly, at the way they don’t have to compete for Lee’s attention because he gives it so easily to both of them.

He doesn't know how long he stares at the photo fighting for his breath before Angelina comes over. Only that suddenly her hand is there turning the page like it's easy. Revealing a full two page photo of Harry shooting towards the ground on his broom, a barely visible snitch in front of him. The caption reads ‘He’s lucky he didn’t break his pretty face, caught the snitch though’ and George manages to read it, manages to take a breath. He leans back against Angelina as she wraps her arms around his shoulders. Let's her quiet commentary bring him back to the present as she turns the pages.

 

—

 

When she pulls the plain brown paper off the book Padma smiles. She recognizes the two boys immediately. Little Colin Creevey who'd spent so many years trying to be Potter, and even smaller Dennis who'd followed in his brother’s footsteps and tried to swallow the wizarding world whole. They'd been among the first who'd gone into the room of requirement in that last year, muggleborns both of them.

She smiled softly as she went through the book. Once or twice she stopped her fingers trembling as she came across someone who she'd seen die but she turned the pages easily. The book felt like a balm over wounds that were healing slowly. As she closed the back cover she let out a sigh and patted it gently.

She set the book carefully on top of the shelf that held her art supplies before turning back to the canvas she'd been working on when the package came. It was large and covered with trees and flowers, clouds drifting slowly across the top of it and she tried to figure out what was missing. It was a commission for some store or another that was opening on diagon alley soon and she wanted it to feel just right.

 

—

 

When the package arrives on Parvati’s desk she's grateful for the excuse to avoid the paperwork portion of her job as an auror, which is what she was supposed to be doing this morning. They'd put out a call at some point for public help locating a death eater who was eluding them and she'd pulled the short straw on going through all the feedback and picking out the useful bits.

She ran her fingers gently down the spine of the book before opening it. The first few pages made her smile. They were a mix of magic and muggle photos, most of them showing kids laughing and playing. There was a photo of a tiny first year Dennis pointing into the lake with a grin that was too large for his face. Then only a handful of pages in was a spread that made her pause.

There were half a dozen photos, all of them magical group shots. Of them only one wasn’t candid. The top most on the right of the two pages was the only posed shot they’d had in the DA. Colin had set a timer on his camera and run to slide into the front of the group. The whole lot of them were grinning, waving out of the photo, even Cho had a smile on her face. As rare an occurrence as that had been it wasn’t what had caused Parvati to pause on the page. She ran a finger down the edge of the photo with a soft smile. Lavender stood at the edge of the group giggling and trying to hide it, judging by the smirk that was on her own face it had been a comment she’d made that caused the giggles.

In a scrawled sort of writing underneath it read ‘The First Days of the DA’ and Parvati wasn’t certain that covered it exactly. Really that had been the beginning of the whole thing hadn’t it. She looked across the pages again, all were photos of the DA taken in the room of requirement. That had been the first year someone had decided they could try to interfere at Hogwarts. It had also been the year the students started fighting back.

“What’d you have there?” One of the older aurors leaned on her cubicle with a grin that meant he truly had no idea what he was looking at.

“The beginning of my war.” She answered without nearly as much thought as her twin would have given the question.

“Your war huh?” He made a noise like he thought she was being childish.

She turned to give him the kind of smile she’d spent a year giving the death eaters who pretended at being teachers. “What else would you call it when death eaters walked the halls I lived in and tortured the smallest of us if we didn’t get between them?”

A frown grew on his face at that. “I’d forgotten they-”

She shut Dennis’ book with a snap that cut off his words. “Lucky you.”

 

—

 

It took Cho Chang almost a week before she was able to make herself look past the first few pages of the book Dennis Creevey had sent her. When she finally did she found herself giggling. There were so many photos that were ridiculous. Here was one of Colin trying to be taller, here was one of Ginny with her hair tied back hexing a dummy while Potter looked more than a little lovestruck in the background, here was one with a sarcastic caption of Harry playing quidditch, here was one of a couple of girls dancing together, and here was one of a group of young kids playing games and eating chocolate.

Then she turned the page and her heart caught in her throat, her giggles cut off entirely. This photo was so very very still, it was not the only one that didn’t move but it was the only one where the stillness was truly upsetting. The photo was of Harry clinging to Cedric, the triwizard cup discarded beside them. It must have been taken almost as soon as they landed on the grass, looking at it she could almost hear the cheers in her ears. That few seconds before they realized what had happened. The photo took up almost a full page, just enough room under it for a caption.

‘Some say the war started when Dumbledore died. They’re wrong.’ The caption read, bold letters standing out below the photo. As she read it she found she could breathe again. The tears ran down her face as she gasped in air like she’d been drowning. She didn’t know which of her mother’s family put the mug of tea beside her but she clutched at it, hot to the touch, grateful for something to remind her where she was.

 

—

 

When Dean and Seamus went through the book Dennis had sent them they sat with their shoulders and their toes pressed together. Seamus had made tea first and Dean had made stew, good comfort food just in case.

In the second half of the book they found a photo that made Seamus snort and press his forehead against Dean’s shoulder. The photo was them sitting just as they were now but with limbs that looked too long and both of them with more acne. It could have been any year of their time at school. Their heads are bent together over a book, shoulder’s touching and grins on both their faces. It’s a muggle photo, still enough it seemed strange. As soon as Dean realized that’s the one that made Seamus snort he starts laughing too.

“Gods it took us forever to figure it out didn’t it?” He snickered and bumped Seamus with his shoulder.

“Didn’t take me that long to figure it out.” Seamus shook his head and tapped the photo. “Just to tell you.”

“’S what I mean.” Dean rolled his eyes as he remembered. It had taken them until after the battle, he’d lost track of Seamus sometime after it started and there’d been a ball of panic in his gut until he’d seen him again over the heads of the rest of the crowd. They’d crashed into each other, mumbling questions and confessions, and hadn’t let go until well into the next day.

“I know.” He leaned against Dean and shook his head. “We were a bit dense you know.”

“Well we were teenage boys.” He said, one arm around Seamus’ shoulders.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you like my writing and want to give me a tip there's a link on my bio!


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